Swan D2.1se+ Custom performance upgrade
An advanced custom redesign for your Swan D2.1se or D2.1se+
The D2.1se+ Custom is The Audio Insider's exclusive redesign and upgrade of the classic Swan D2.1se and D2.1se+, Swan's finest stand monitor.
(Requires return of stock Swan D2.1se or D2.1se+ loudspeakers for a complete internal rebuild. Allow 2-4 weeks build time.)
How has the original Swan D2.1se+ been improved?
Starting with the stock speaker, we've redesigned and replaced everything between the input terminals and the drivers - inside every D2.1se+ Custom is a new hand-made and point-to-point wired crossover network built by the Skiing Ninja. We've also added revised bass tuning, and upgraded internal wiring. The stock D2.1se+ cabinets, drivers, grilles, and hardware remain.
How does the D2.1se+ Custom compare to its class?
The result of our upgrade to the D2.1se+ is a superior amplitude response than the original, but most striking is the Custom's extraordinary definition, transparency, transient "integrity", focus, and inner-note blackness, which is easily on par with anything we're aware of in the Custom's class. Downward dynamic range is truly excellent. The soundstage is seamless and unbounded by the speakers themselves. Individual sources take on their own acoustical spaces within it. Bass is extended, tuneful and defined. The speaker simply disappears, and the spectrum is balanced and well-integrated.
Has the D2.1se+'s harmonic structure and personality been altered?
In some ways we've made specific changes to the D2.1se+'s tonal balance but we haven't altered the original's overall personality, save to pull much more music out of the recording. Where the D2.1se+ was engaging, the Custom can be riveting. Where the original was musical, the Custom is musically insightful. And where the D2.1se+ was integrated, the Custom is a window on the performance, one at times so convincing that you'll probably forget them and relax in the wash of pure music.
How did we get here?
TAI have logged hundreds of hours on a number of custom loudspeaker systems - we've engineered 200 individual projects from award winning autosound to home ultra-fi to innovative high-performance commercial installations around the world. One of our favorite projects was a loudspeaker less sophisticated but not unlike the D2.1se+ that dates back over twenty years. Hours of tuning revealed just what this combo of 6.5" poly-coned, cast-frame midbass driver and 28mm ferrofluid tweeter with Meuller soft textile dome was capable of - it could unravel recorded information like nothing else.
Great hifi can suspend disbelief and transport a listener back to the recording venue. Musicians reveal what they meant. A myriad of mixing and microphone techniques are revealed. Such a sound allows a listener to forget the loudspeakers and to use them tool to facilitate changes, upgrades, tweaks, and adjustments elsewhere in the system.
In early 2010 we decided to relaunch this development in a special Swan D2.1se renamed the D2.1se+ Custom.
So what's so different?
Tuning. Years of experience provided the insight to balance this design within a very narrow musical range, adjusting every internal, tunable aspect in the speaker to blend with and compliment every other. Everything has been optimized: the transient attack and decay, the dimensional aspects of the speakers soundstage and individual images, and the speaker's dynamic envelope such that everything integrates into an acoustical whole and here the whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.
As with all high-definition components, this speaker might not be for everyone. Measurement-only fans won't find anything either exceptional or controversial in this loudspeaker. The D2.1se+ Custom is made to do one thing, which is to flesh out a great recording. This is a speaker with which to, as is said of all authentic-sounding audio devices, "rediscover your recordings."
Today, the D2.1se+ is both subtly and fundamentally transformed from a great stand monitor into a reference tool - the D2.1se+ Custom takes you to the performance like no other performance loudspeaker we carry.
Will it make magic in my system?
If you value great music and have a good system, we think it will. The D2.1se+ Custom is an exceptional reference-grade loudspeaker system, and it's available exclusively from The Audio Insider...for much less than it's sound would suggest.
Swan D2.1se+ Custom performance upgrade
The D2.1se+ Custom Upgrade includes:
Hand made crossover networks with point-to-point circuit and wiring
Premium Clarity Cap capacitors
Mil-spec bypass capacitors
Very low loss heavy ga low-distortion inductors
Non-inductive wirewound resistors
99.98% copper Electra wire
Silver-bearing solder throughout
Revised crossover points
Revised bass tuning
Improved damping and definition throughout the frequency range
How are the D2.1se Custom's crossover and tuning different from the original D2.1se? TAI cannot reveal every detail of our redesign of the D2.1se, but we can relate how we came to these changes and what they do to the physics of the loudspeaker.
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The D2.1se+ Custom is tuned about 5Hz lower than the original D2.1se. We'll spec the Custom at 39Hz and we'll revise the original - already known for excellent bass extension - up to 45Hz. (Swan rates the original D2.1se at 40Hz but it gives up about 5Hz to the Custom. Today's audio world can publish questionable specifications but the specs for the D2.1se and D2.1se Custom give a meaningful perspective. In conjunction with this retuning, we also improved the speaker's midbass tune for a more linear response.
- The D2.1se+ Custom has a crossover frequency about 500Hz lower than the original. Both crossovers are 4th order designs, and have roughly equivalent directivities, sensitivities, and knee shapes.
